beyond left and right but against the center

According to Prof Alexander Dugin, Vladimir Putin stands at a crossroads. Throughout his career as the President of Russia, Putin has attempted to balance two opposing sides of his political nature: one side is a liberal democrat who seeks to adopt Western-style reforms in Russia and maintain good relations with the United States and Europe, and the other is a Russian patriot who wishes to preserve Russia's traditions and reassert her role as one of the great powers of the world. According to Dugin, this balancing act cannot go on if Putin wishes to enjoy continuing popular support among the Russian people. Putin must act to preserve Russia's unique identity and sovereignty in the face of increasing challenges, both from Russian liberals at home and from foreign powers. Russia is no longer strong enough to stand on her own, he writes. In order to do this, Russia must cooperate with other dissenting powers who oppose the new globalist order of liberalism to bring about a multipolar world, in which no single nation wields supreme power, but rather several major powers keep each other in balance. Russia is crucial to this effort, in Dugin's view, and indeed, its own survival as a unique and independent civilisation is dependent on a geopolitical shift away from the unipolar world represented by America's unchecked supremacy. This fascinating book, written by an informal advisor to Putin and a Kremlin insider, is the first of its kind in English.

The forest in sacred geography is close to the mountains in a definite sense. The symbolism of the tree is related to the symbolism of the mountain (both the former and the latter designate the world axis). Therefore in tellurocracies the forest also plays a peripheral function — it, too, is the “place of the priests” (druids, magi, hermits), but also at the same time the “place of demons”, i.e. archaic residuals from a vanished past. Neither the forest zone can be the centre of the overland empire.

The tundra represents the northern analogue to the steppe and the desert, although the cold climate makes it much less significant from a geopolitical point of view. This “periphericity” reaches its apogee with ices, which, similarly to the mountains, are deeply archaic zones. It is indicative that the eskimo shamanic tradition implies departing alone among ices, where to the future shaman the world beyond is opened out. Thus, ices are a hieratic zone, the threshold of a different world.

History never repeats itself, but there are historical constants. The tension between Land Power, represented by the Eurasian continent, and the Sea Power, represented by the USA, is one of those constants. A return of the Cold War? I would rather say it has never ended. The proof is that NATO, who should have disappeared at the same time as the Warsaw Pact, has, on the contrary, become an american-centered war machine with planetary vocation. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall it never ceased to deploy itself in the East, in a blatant violation of the assurances given to Gorbachev at the moment of the German reunification. The Ukrainian crisis is inscribed in this very context. To the Americans, it is about being present as far as the Russian borders - something Russia cannot, obviously, accept. Could you imagine the USA accepting the installation of Russian bases in Mexico?

What is news is that Europe doesn't even have the excuse of the "soviet threat" to justify its atlantism. The way with which the public opinion is systematically uninformed regarding Ukraine confirms the servilism in which the European Union has fallen. The government issued from the coup in Maidan make their bombers and tanks shoot the Russian "separatists", the civil war has already made 2.500 casualties, and those who yesterday have accused Bashar Al-Asad of "massacre of his own people" are the ones applauding this today (or they don't care absolutely).

Philosophy is not only a science, like the other scientific disciplines, but it is primarily a state of mind. The very meaning of the word philosophy (derived from the Greek compound philo + sophia love of wisdom) indicates a special attitude and a special purpose. In particular, philosophy is a free and unprejudiced quest for truth, for the sake of having a vision of the truth (i.e. theorizing) and for the sake of the human being whose consciousness is motivated, attracted, and enriched by the quest for the truth. Thus, even though philosophy can be considered as a science, its object consists of all the objects that are studied by the other sciences. Moreover, philosophy is the creation of a world of meanings that expresses the spiritual freedom of the human being.

The main areas of philosophy are the following: (i) ontology (or metaphysics): it is concerned with questions about the nature and the mode of being of the world and of God; (ii) epistemology: it is concerned with questions about the validity of knowledge, and it investigates how we know what we think we know; and (iii) ethics: it investigates how we discern right from wrong, and, also, it is concerned with the meaning of ‘good life’.

The hatred of Strelkov is that by an enemy race, not in the biological, but in the spiritual sense. The race of technologists, con artists, bureaucrats, manipulators, and merchants. Werner Sombart used to say that there are two types of people: the race of merchants and that of heroes. Europe of Modernity is the result of triumphant merchants (capitalism) over the race of heroes (Middle Ages). Strelkov is the Russian Middle Ages. After all, Orthodoxy itself cannot be “modern”: this would be a parody, a simulacrum. It could either be Ancient or Medieval. “Modernity” is the patrimony of the Antichrist. Thus, Strelkov is from that which once passed. But not that which once passed, and is no more, but rather that which truly was, and still is, as the core of our souls, as an arcane center of the Russian identity.

Look, today everyone puts forward completely utopian projects and do not hesitate to do it. Either universal gay-parade with post-human beings possessed by virtual currency and physical immortality (liberals). Then the global caliphate (wahhabis).That messianic world center in Israel that feed rod of iron ger-toshav (Zionists). The "realists" and supporters of the status quo (say, nothing will happen and everything will be so as it is now as usual, as if everything had been so as of now, nonsense - everything was always different and it depends on what we are as free human beings want deeply in our hearts) grumble full absurdity - there is nothing more utopian than the desire to preserve all, that exists at the moment. In anyway, we are led by big projects.Why should we, as traditionalists and fundamental conservatives hide behind the façade of our plans and projects of dry rational calculations (no one believes us anyway). Therefore, it's possible to speak openly: our goal is Indo-European Empire - from Vladivostok to Dublin. Under the banner of Christ and the Great Monarch. The People's Empire, ruled by the wise and courageous. Merchants and polit-technologists, oligarchs and usurers won't exist there. Everyone who does not like it can go out or sink in the other, disgusting, in my opinion, utopias.

We aren't going to limit ourselves by annexing Crimea. That for sure. Yesterday the reunion with the Crimea was a victory for us. Today this is infinitely small thing. Rates rise. The peoples of South-East of Ukraine are waking up gradually. It is exactly that "long at harnessing" and "swift in riding" (old Russian proverb) .

All the important is yet to come. We do not expect a quick victory. Everything is to be paid for. Now we are witnesses of a birth of a new political reality, that is why everything acquires a special significance. This is not a technical enterprise, not a bargain. This is history itself. The struggle for Ukraine - is a struggle for reunification of slavic peoples. Today it is clear that this reunion should be geographically different. Galicia and a number pro-western areas, and as well a large part of Kiev do not strive to Unity. We understand that. We won't drag anyone by force. But we will not leave nor betray ours. However, for everything you have to fight and struggle to create a new political and historical reality.

Great Antonin Artaud, who spontaneously and being a real madman opened and lived through the deepest doctrines of Tradition, wrote about a special "new schizophrenic body”, to which strives the dark depths of the will of the researcher after a painful, unbearable understanding of the decay of flesh, after "dismemberment" and "self-dismemberment”.This "new schizophrenic body" does not have separate organs, members. It’s head – is without eyes, mouth, ears, nostrils, etc. Just a "head". Likewise, the rest of the body - which, by the way, in this case, can not be strictly separated from the "head" or, more precisely, what are said to be conditionally "head" - has no division into "hands" and "feet", more over on "internal organs" and "external". The essence of the "new schizophrenic body" in that it is fundamentally indivisible, that it - postcriminal, over-sacrificial, has no chance of becoming neither a victim, or to act as an executioner. This reality – is the reality of the soul, taken in its most free and independent form. It is much closer to the real "I" of the person.

The concept of a “Russian civilization” undergirds the vision of the Russian Eurasianists. This is both a political theory and a source of foreign policy decisions. The “imperial mission” of a society is not about local values, but cosmic ideas. In politics, these “imperial ideologies” serve as the foundation of global rule.

Eurasianism as foreign policy refers to Russian geopolitical space. Russia is a “cosmos,” it takes smaller “solar systems” under its wing to create a loose federation of allied nations and states. In some instances, it rejects the very notion of “nation-statism” in that a true civilization can be only a federation, not a state.

Prior to the well known Alexander Dugin, Eurasianism has a rich ideological heritage unknown to those who cannot read Russian. PM Bitsilli (1953) took a broad look at global history. “Rhythm” is specific to a people. It is dialectical both in that it is becoming (rather than being) and takes the familiar trinity as undifferentiated unity – fragmentation – reflective unity. This also was essential to the metaphysics of Karsavin. Rhythms differ radically, but they still partake of the same formula.

Under capitalism, the capitalists rule. Under socialism - representatives of the working class, the proletariat. Under Nazism and Fascism - racial or national elite, "the new aristocracy". Under Fourth Political Theory should rule the People (Narod in Russian, akin to the German Volk: not "Population").Modern Russia - has capitalism. Hence, it is ruled by capitalists. Therefore not Narod. In order to build Russia, in which will rule the Narod, it is necessary to carry out an anti-capitalist (anti-oligarchic, at least) Revolution. Financial magnates should be excluded from political power. And that's the main thing. Everyone should choose - power OR wealth. Choose wealth, forget about power. Choose power - forget about wealth.

Today, this question is particularly acute: what is the Russian State at the moment? Does it belong to its Narod? Or is it mechanical? This is the principal dilemma for Putin, personally, as the head if this State with a vague dual identity. The rise of patriotism in Russia, reunification with Crimea, and the confrontation with the West are all signs of a People’s—Narod’s presence. Cynical political technologists (political scientists), the all-powerful and constantly lying top-level managers, mad corruption, dominant Liberalism, anti-Narod oligarchy, Westernizing on the part of the intelligentsia and the elites all point to the State of death, the State of survival. Putin has been balancing on this narrow fence between the State of a People—Narod and that of the mechanical and alienated Liberal elite for the past 14 years. He kept taking steps in one direction, then another. Of course, without a certain kind of support for Novorossia, today’s picture—even if critically difficult—would not be possible. Were Putin solely on the side if a dead State, Russia Corp., he would have betrayed everything himself long ago. But this is not the case.

The “nation” as a political formation becomes a synonym of bourgeois society. For nationalists, beyond this society, there exists only a zone of national and social risk. The nation is thought of here as a community of the middle class. And the task consists in integrating the lower layers into the national whole, often with the help of welfare measures. That is why nationalism can possess numerous socialist features, though the ideological basis here is different: pulling the economically weak to the level of the middle class is a task ofnational integration, not a consequence of orientation towards justice and material equality. We see something similar with left liberals, who consider integrating the under-class into broader society as a condition for the stability of the development of the capitalist system.

Nationalism, as a rule, relates negatively to national minorities and especially to immigrants. This is connected with the fact that in the eyes of nationalists, these elements disturb the homogeneity of the national middle class. Moreover, some national minorities are blamed for concentrating in their hands too much material wealth, in other words, those who challenge the national middle class “from above.” Nationalist feelings of injustice are expressed in antagonism towards “oligarchs” and, often times, as “economic anti-semitism,” a sentiment that was not foreign to Marx himself. In turn, other non-nationals (usually immigrants) are blamed for increasing the numbers of the lower strata and underclass, the integration of which is complicated by national differences. A variant of anti-immigrant nationalism consists in the charge that the increase of cheap labor slows the process of enriching the “native” population and the “harmonious” (for nationalists) growth of the middle class.

Each symbol is ambiguous. In geography, the eight-pointed star is the compass, something that provides orientation, introducing order in the seemingly chaotic space, the geometric symbol of the Universe. In Orthodoxy, it is eight-pointed star of the Virgin Mary; It is found in religious icons. It is the morning star and evening star, a guide and point of orientation. It is the star of Lucifer, Ishtar and Venus, and a powerful symbol of “chaos magic”… In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna says: “Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Ether, Spirit, Intelligence and Ego are my eight separated energies.” The symbol is basically an over-rational one. It’s impossible to explain in a rational way, at least not from the limited position of human beings. Our understanding of symbols is therefore necessarily incomplete, and their meanings, from our perspective, are contradictory. The symbol is possible to know, but can not be explained. Science is, of course, an inferior method of cognition. Science is, after all, constantly redefined, changing their methods and findings. A rational approach is necessary, but is just not enough. Tradition is over-rational, and their learning over-temporal. Rene Guenon speaks about their superhuman origin.

Whatever you think of Dugin, he’s largely beside the point. What’s happening is far greater than Dugin, and it’s far too great for any one man, even a man as ambitious and capable as Dugin, to master. Much the same way that Thomas Edison deserves credit for inventing the light bulb after having laboriously tested hundreds of filaments on his way to the right material, Alexander Dugin deserves credit for inventing the phenomenon of Tradition as a global ideology in opposition to the Western elites. He clouds his works up with hundreds upon hundreds of other ideas, many of which are useless or irrelevant for ourselves, but this one idea of his is the defining idea which will define the geopolitics of the coming century.

Only a rare few in the alternative right knew Alexander Dugin before the publication and translation of his book, The Fourth Political Theory, in 2012. Suddenly, the contents of this book became the subject of lively discussion and he was hailed as “arguably the most prominent New Right thinker in the world.” With the exception of Michael O’Meara at Counter Currents, most of the reviews were very positive or at least sympathetic. After reading reviews, interviews, blogs, articles, and listening to some video lectures by Dugin, I decided to read The Fourth Political Theory (FPT).

Through the first pages, I was fairly impressed by Dugin’s laconic treatment of the way liberalism had created the normative conditions for a humanity predisposed toward a world government in its “glorification of total freedom and the independence of the individual from any kind of limits, including reason, identity (social, ethnic, or even gender), discipline, and so on” (18). With the “liberation” of man from any necessary, pre-ordained membership in any community or identity, and the universal morality of human rights widely accepted, few obstacles now stood in the way of a totalitarian global market.